Why Couples Keep Having the Same Fight: Identify Patterns & Stop the Cycle

Overview

In this session, Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky breaks down one of the most common questions couples ask: Why do we keep having the same fight over and over again? Whether it’s about money, parenting, chores, or intimacy — the topic changes but the emotional experience stays the same. Dr. Polinsky explains why the real problem isn’t the content of your arguments, but the underlying relationship pattern keeping you stuck.

Key Takeaways

• The cycle is the enemy, not your partner. Most couples are both trying to feel connected — it’s the pattern that gets in the way.
• Focusing on the content is a common mistake. Proving your point, explaining yourself better, or finding the “perfect solution” won’t stop the cycle if the underlying pattern isn’t addressed.
• Every pattern starts with a disconnection — feeling unseen, rejected, unimportant, or alone — which triggers the nervous system into protection mode.
• Common patterns include: pursue/withdraw, criticize/defend, and mutual shutdown (both partners avoiding conflict).
• Patterns can change. The Spiral to Team process involves: (1) Pause the spiral, (2) Understand what’s underneath, (3) Share safely with your partner, (4) Feel like a team.

Why Couples Keep Having the Same Fight. Watch the Full Video Below — You Won’t Want to Miss This One

Timestamps

• 0:00 — Welcome & Introduction (Dr. Polinsky’s first live)
• 0:30 — Why do couples keep having the same fight?
• 1:34 — Same fight, different topic — recognizing the pattern
• 5:07 — The biggest mistake: focusing on the content
• 7:43 — Introducing the Spiral to Team process
• 8:14 — “The cycle is the enemy, not your partner” (core concept from EFT)
• 8:38 — Common Pattern #1: Pursue/Withdraw
• 9:35 — Common Pattern #2: Criticize/Defend loop
• 10:35 — Common Pattern #3: Mutual shutdown / avoiding conflict
• 11:01 — Every pattern starts with disconnection
• 12:40 — Protective moves: Pursuing behaviors explained
• 13:56 — Protective moves: Withdrawing behaviors explained
• 16:03 — Each person’s protective move triggers the other’s fear
• 16:56 — How the loop becomes automatic over time
• 18:37 — Real example: Sarah & Mike (pursue/withdraw pattern)
• 20:37 — Key takeaways recap
• 24:00 — Free Relationship Pattern Assessment (QR code)
• 25:16 — How to support the practice (Google reviews)
• 26:08 — Q&A begins
• 26:34 — Q: How do I know if we’re stuck in a pattern?
• 28:13 — Q: Can patterns change?
• 30:04 — Q: What if my partner won’t participate?
• 33:05 — Q: What if we argue about multiple things?
• 34:44 — Q: Is every couple stuck in some kind of pattern?
• 36:11 — Closing & how to reach out

Resources Mentioned

• Free Relationship Pattern Assessment — Scan the QR code shown in the video or use this link.
• Communicate and Connect Counseling — communicateandconnect.com
• The Spiral to Team Process — Dr. Polinsky’s framework for breaking conflict cycles

Full Transcript

[0:00] Okay. All right. I think I am live. Um, so hi. Welcome everyone. My name is Dr. Elizabeth Plinske, and, um, this is my first live, so hopefully it will go well. I am sort of figuring out the technology as I am going. Um, so I believe we are streaming live to YouTube right now, and then I’ll go back and re-upload it to Facebook.

[0:30] Um, but thank you for anyone who is live and attending and watching this, or if you’re watching the replay. Um, today we’re gonna talk about really one of the most common questions that couples ask, which is, “Why do we keep having the same fight over and over and over again?” And sometimes it’s about money, um, sometimes it’s about parenting or s*x and intimacy, and it can be about dishes, like any of the household responsibility, chore, laundry, um, things.

[1:07] But in each scenario, even though the topic changes, somehow there is a very similar emotional experience where the conversation feels exactly the same, and the emotional triggers also feel exactly the same. You end up finishing an argument and you feel frustrated and disconnected and wondering how you ended up here yet again.

[1:34] And so what we’re really talking about is switching how you’re thinking about what the problem is, because what if the real problem isn’t actually what you’re fighting about? It’s not actually about the dishes. It’s not actually about parenting. Um, what if the actual problem is that there is a relationship pattern that keeps pulling you back into the same type of conflict and relationship spiral?

[2:03] And so that is what I’m gonna show you how that sorta works today. Okay, and now I’m gonna switch to show you my PowerPoint slide a little bigger. All right. So, uh, most couples end up believing that the problem is about the issue that they’re discussing. Again, they might talk to me about money, differences in how they spend money or what they wanna spend money on.

[2:35] They will fight a lot about parenting. Um, when sometimes they’ll bring up different values, like we must have different values when it comes to parenting. Um, and they will even fight about communication. So this is because oftentimes couples do know, like, the types of communication skills, how they should be communicating differently, but they actually are not able to use those communication skills in the moment.

[3:06] So while they’re fighting about money, parenting, chores, intimacy, maybe it’s how much time they spend together or maybe it’s communication — whatever the topic is, it ends up having the same fight and kind of the same ending. But when we slow moments of conflict, which is what we do in couples counseling, we slow these down and we look carefully and we notice something that tends to appear.

[3:40] Um, the emotions are familiar, like the same thing gets triggered over and over and over, and then the same reactions start happening. So the reactions feel really familiar. And then the outcome is familiar. Both people end up feeling disconnected, separated from each other, feeling very tense and alone.

[4:02] And so even though it’s a different topic, it’s the same fight, the same ending. And so this is something that I’d love for you to be thinking about in your relationship or in relationships that you’ve had. So most often, because I work mostly with couples, this comes up in couple relationships, but it can also come up in a relationship with your parents or in a relationship between you and your child or, um, you and a very close friend.

[4:35] But just think — somebody significant to you, maybe your partner. Is there an argument that seems to continue to show up over and over again in your relationship? And does it seem to have a similar pattern to it? So let’s talk a little bit about a common mistake that couples have. The biggest one is focusing on the content.

[5:07] They start thinking that, “If we could just solve this issue” — again, whether the issue is around parenting or chores or whatever the topic is — “If we could just solve this issue, we’d stop fighting.” And so they might start focusing on trying to prove their point or gathering all sorts of evidence.

[5:35] I see this one a lot with parenting. Like, let me read parenting books and get all the evidence and show you the evidence around this conflict. They might also try to explain themselves better. Um, and so it can become very logical. It can become repetitive. “Okay, no, you didn’t understand me. Let me try to explain this another way.”

[5:59] Um, I’ve also seen people working to try to find a perfect solution. So this actually comes up a lot when there are conflicts around s*x and intimacy. People might try to find, like, a schedule or they might try to find solutions around foreplay. Like, there are lots of ways that people try to find the perfect solution to a content problem.

[6:31] But what they rarely do is understand the pattern that is happening beneath the content of the conflict. So as long as the pattern is staying the same, the argument simply comes back. Like even, again, even if the topic changes — like one day it’s about parenting, one day it’s about dishes —

[7:07] if you’re not addressing the underlying pattern and you just focus on the content, then you often will go around in circles: you proving your point, your partner proving their point, you explaining yours more in depth, them explaining theirs more in depth, and not actually getting anywhere. So one of the things that we wanna do is — in our practice, we have something called the Spiral to Team process that we follow, where step one is to pause the spiral and step two is to understand what’s happening underneath it.

[7:43] So one of the things that’s happening underneath it is this pattern. Okay. Let’s go to the next slide. So the real problem is the pattern. And this is what I would really encourage everyone — if there was one takeaway from watching this, it would be: I want you to think about the cycle is the enemy, not your partner.

[8:14] It’s the cycle. This is one of the most important concepts in Emotionally Focused Therapy — that your cycle’s the enemy, not your partner. Most couples become really focused on who is right. It kind of goes like, “No, I’m right.” “No, you’re not.” “I’m right.” And they just go back and forth trying to win the argument of who’s right.

[8:38] But a better question is, instead of who’s right, is: what happens between us when we get disconnected? Maybe one person is pursuing while the other one is withdrawing. This is a very common one — it’s not the only one, but it’s a very common one where someone is wanting to talk about it and the other one is getting overwhelmed and they are like, “No, I don’t want to talk about this.”

[9:06] “We’ll talk about it later” — and maybe it doesn’t get talked about later. Um, or “We should try this solution.” “No, I’m not ready to think about solutions” — and so then there is a withdrawal. This is one common pattern that could be happening between you that leads to disconnection. Um, another common pattern, also very, very common, is where one person says something that comes off critical.

[9:35] Maybe they didn’t intend it critically. They could have really good intentions, but somehow what they say comes across as a little bit critical. And then if it’s perceived in a critical way, the other one can get defensive. And so when the other one becomes defensive, then the first one might get defensive back or feel like the person is saying, “They’re not really hearing me. Let me explain more.”

[10:02] And then what comes out might still feel defensive or critical, and then they get stuck in this criticize-defend loop or a defend-defend place. And so this is another really common one. We also have where things can escalate and someone can shut down. And while it’s not on this slide, we also have moments where two people can both shut down and both be a bit worried about rocking the boat.

[10:35] Conversations feel so tense that they just both sweep things under the rug. So the thing to take away though from here is that the pattern becomes stronger than the people. It’s not just about me and my partner — it’s this pattern that we get trapped in together.

[11:01] Okay, so every pattern starts with a disconnection. Every moment that our cycle takes over — the thing that starts a tense moment or a conflict moment — it all starts with disconnection. Most couples do not wake up wanting to fight or to feel tense or to feel lonely. Something usually happens where someone starts to feel unseen, they feel unimportant, someone feels rejected, or they feel alone in what they’re going through — and then that is like a threat to the nervous system.

[11:44] It’s a threat to our connection, to our bond together as a couple. And so when my nervous system is detecting a threat to our connection in the relationship, that’s when we can all go into a protective mode because we wanna protect the relationship and protect our connection with our partner.

[12:08] And so oftentimes the argument is less about the topic itself and much more about the pain underneath — whether that’s the pain of feeling ignored, the pain of feeling criticized, or feeling rejected or feeling alone. There’s some sort of pain underneath that comes up, it gets triggered, and then our nervous system is activated, and then we might react. All right, let’s go to the next slide.

[12:40] So when connection feels threatened, people protect themselves. Such a natural, normal thing to do. Um, some people will move toward — and we typically call this a pursuing move — where I’m trying to move forward to find a solution. So they might push harder, like, “Well, come on, we need to figure this out. Let’s talk about it. Let’s find solutions.”

[13:06] They’re really bringing a lot of energy forward and pushing harder. They might ask more questions. And when the conflict is starting to escalate, they might get critical and blame their partner. Um, and it’s usually not intended to criticize.

[13:31] It’s usually an intent to say, like, “Hey, listen to me. This is really important. We have to figure this out.” And then it can quickly turn into, “You have to do this. You didn’t do that.” And it becomes critical even though the intention is really to find a way through together, to find a way to protect our connection as a couple.

[13:56] Um, so this is one set of protective moves that can happen. Another set is what we would call withdrawing — and that might be where I shut down. And sometimes it is not even a choice, and I want to really validate that. I’ve had many clients where it’s like, “I am not choosing to shut down. It’s just my whole body just went numb, and I feel nothing now.”

[14:23] And this is something that as a therapist we can help with in individual or couples counseling. It can be a nervous system response — it’s not always a choice. And then there are times where it’s like, “This is too much conflict. We’re just in a fight. Let’s stop talking about it,” and they want to leave the conversation.

[14:45] They might walk away, or they might go silent. And there are times where that can be a choice. But usually for most people who have this strategy — when they leave, when they withdraw, when they go silent — it is because they really do not want conflict with their partner.

[15:16] They are also trying to protect the connection. They are wanting to be in a good place with their partner. And then when the conflict comes up, they know it — it spirals the same way every time. Whenever this happens, we’re left feeling disconnected. And so then they want to leave or want to calm the conflict down.

[15:38] Stop talking about it. Go silent. Avoid the discussion. Something like this to try to preserve the connection with their partner. So what’s really important to know is that neither partner is trying to create distance. If anything, both of them are trying so hard to prevent any distance or disconnection from happening in the relationship.

[16:03] Both of them are trying to feel safe. And what is — I guess — like the tragedy in this whole thing is that each person’s protective move often triggers the other person’s fear. So if I am pushing for us to talk, and then my partner is saying, “Oh, I know that every time this sort of spiral happens, we are left disconnected,” and then they want to leave.

[16:32] Well, then my fear is triggered again, and I go, “No, let’s talk about it. We’ve got to figure out a solution.” And now it’s escalating more. And now my partner is saying, “Oh, gosh, we’re gonna get disconnected if we continue to escalate” — and they want harder to leave the conversation or end the conversation, and then we get in a loop like this.

[16:56] Okay. And the loop — the loop is when the pattern really takes over. Because especially after enough repetitions, it’s like the same pattern happens in our conversation over and over. Especially if you’ve been together for a while, you have history of this happening many times.

[17:23] Maybe it’s happening once a week sometimes. I’ve worked with couples where it’s almost like a daily occurrence — they are having a spiral and a repetitive conversation that is like the same argument over and over again. And we can all become a little bit worried when there is that history, because with enough repetition, the pattern becomes almost automatic.

[17:52] We might stop responding to our partner and just start responding to the cycle or to the fear that the cycle is going to start happening. And people will be able to start predicting: “You always say this, and I always say this. This is always how it goes. Or you react this way, and I react this way.”

[18:14] “It’s always this way. And we always end in the same place where we feel disconnected.” And when couples reach this point, they’re usually dealing with a pretty deeply established pattern that has been there for a while.

[18:37] Okay. So I wanted to give a story, an example. So I’m just gonna call them Sarah and Mike for today. But let’s say Sarah wants to feel connected, and she might say something like, “You never make time for me.” And this can be intended as a way to start a conversation that will bring solutions, hopefully bring us together to feel connected again.

[19:10] Um, but what Mike hears is criticism. He hears, “Okay, I’m failing. She’s not happy with me. I’m not doing enough. I’m not good enough.” And so then he withdraws. And then as Mike withdraws, Sarah might experience that as rejection. “Look, he doesn’t even want to talk to me. He doesn’t even want to make time for me right now for us to figure out how to work through this together.”

[19:41] And so then she might have some panic, and she wants to try harder to talk about it, and then he might pull further away. And soon they’re arguing about all the things — arguing about their schedules, about whether or not they have date nights.

[20:06] And underneath, Sarah is actually fearing, “Maybe I don’t matter to him.” And underneath, Mike might actually be afraid of, “I can’t get it right for her. I desperately want to get it right for my partner, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make this better.”

[20:25] And the real problem is not about the schedule, about making enough time for each other or the date nights. That’s not the real problem. The real problem is actually this pattern that they get stuck in every time they try to talk about this.

[20:37] Okay. So I just wanted to cover some key takeaways. Again, this is my very first Live, so I’m hoping that it’s going well. Um, we’ll be excited to watch the replay and see how it went. So if you have any recommendations on how to make it better or topics that you’d want covered, please feel free to comment them.

[21:04] My hope is to start doing these more regularly — either on a every other week or a weekly basis. But I wanted to just get going the very first time. So these are some of the key things I’m hoping you take away from today’s Live: that most reoccurring arguments — if it feels like we’re having the same fight over and over and over again, and if it’s the same fight even though it’s a different topic — most of these reoccurring arguments are about an underlying pattern that’s happening in the relationship.

[21:49] The other key takeaway is that the cycle is the enemy. It’s not your partner. Most couples desperately want to feel connected with each other, and the cycle comes up and it gets in the way for them. And when both partners are protecting themselves — this is also part of what makes the cycle happen — we get afraid, our nervous systems get activated, and then we react out of our fear, trying to protect the relationship most of the time. But our way of protecting the relationship is just so different from how our partner’s way of protecting the relationship is, that then we trigger each other.

[22:43] And the very first step with change begins with identifying the pattern that might be happening in your relationship. And again, where I’m really focused on helping couples, you can use these same principles if you have the same type of argument happening over and over with a parent, a child, a sibling, or a very close friend — same principles apply.

[23:11] So if you’re watching this live or in the replay, I’d just like you to take a moment to pause and think about what might be the pattern showing up most in your relationship. Just pick a relationship that’s pretty important to you — whether that’s your partner or another family member or a close friend.

[23:35] And just take a moment to see if you can think about what is it that takes place. What happens in a repetitive loop that we get stuck in? Is someone always shutting down? Are they trying to avoid the conversation? Is someone else trying really hard to explain or pushing harder to find solutions? Just try to see if you can figure out what the repetitive pattern is.

[24:00] Okay, and if this is something that you want help with, I did create a free relationship pattern assessment. It is so short — I mean, it takes like three minutes — and you can use that to discover your relationship pattern. Just scan the QR code on the screen.

[24:25] And that really helps you identify the pattern that may be keeping you stuck. It’ll hopefully help you gain insight into what’s happening beneath the surface, and then learn about the next steps towards creating a stronger emotional connection between you and your partner.

[24:48] So again, if that’s of interest to you, you can scan the QR code, and there should also be a link to it in the description that goes along with this. Okay, and I’m gonna have time for questions in just a moment. Um, but I also wanted to just mention that if you are finding this helpful, one of the ways that you can support our work is by leaving a Google review.

[25:16] We never ask counseling clients to leave Google reviews because that is an issue with confidentiality. But if you find any of the resources that we provide helpful — we have a podcast, we have our YouTube channel, we have lots of different resources — when people can leave a review based off of the resources, that is really helpful. It helps us out a whole lot in our counseling practice, and it also helps us know what resources to continue to provide.

[26:08] Okay, I do know that there are a couple of people live, so this will be interesting. If you have any questions, I’ll stay on. I think you can just post a comment, and I should be able to see the comment and answer any questions. And of course, if you don’t feel comfortable, no need to do that.

[26:34] One of the questions that I tend to get is how do I know if we’re stuck in a pattern? I think the way to know is to start looking at each conflict. So if you and your partner had a fight last week about the dishes, and then this week about parenting — take both of them, go one at a time, and go, “Okay, when I did this, you did this, and when you did this, I did this.”

[27:24] Just trying to track exactly what happened in the interaction and then go to the next argument and say, “Okay, when we had that fight, did it have the same sequence of events? Did I do the same thing? Did you do the same thing? Did it follow that same cyclical pattern?”

[27:48] That is a really great way to notice if it’s the same pattern. You can do this on your own, or you can do this with your partner. I think it’s a really great partner exercise to get a handle on what is the pattern that we’re stuck in.

[28:13] Um, okay, another question that I get is: can patterns change? Absolutely, yes. Patterns can change in two ways. The first is that they can change over time. So sometimes the pattern that we had in the first few years of our marriage is not the same pattern that we have 20, 30, 40 years into our marriage. Time changes patterns.

[28:47] Um, I have also known some clients where, if there was a very large betrayal or some sort of traumatic experience, they can flip positions. Um, but the thing that most people want to know is: can our pattern change so that we can be close, so that our arguments don’t keep spiraling into a situation where we feel disconnected?

[29:27] And that is yes, absolutely. That is what we do at Communicate and Connect Counseling with the Spiral to Team process. You stop the spiral, understand what’s happening underneath, and then you share. You work on sharing things safely with your partner. And that way you start creating a new cycle — a cycle where I am confiding in my partner and responding to them versus reacting out of my protective fear place.

[30:04] And so it does sometimes take people some time, but I have seen many people change that pattern so that they can navigate through it together. Um, another common question is: what if my partner won’t participate? That’s very common. It’s kinda ideal if you and your partner can work on this together.

[30:35] Um, if you can work on it together in couples counseling, that is preferred. If you can’t do it together in couples counseling, if there’s a way you can make time to work on it together at home, that would also be ideal. Like, there were times in my life with me and my husband where he’s in the military, and there have been times that with military life we just could not go to couples counseling in a consistent way.

[31:07] Like, there were times where he would be gone every other month for a whole month, and there was no real consistency with his work schedule with the military, and then times where he was deployed. I mean, he just came back from deployment. He was gone for like a whole year practically.

[31:29] So there are times where it’s not always feasible to go to couples counseling together. But what you can do — and what my husband and I did — is we would meet every month to do a relationship meeting, and part of what we would talk about is what is our pattern? What is the pattern that our arguments keep going in? How can we work on this together?

[31:52] So if you are in a place with your partner that you can do that, that is a great strategy. And sometimes conversations spiral so quickly that you and your partner can’t do that just yet. That’s when I would say couples counseling would be helpful.

[32:17] You can also work on it yourself. So if you notice you’re part of the spiral — what do you do when your fear gets triggered? If you start to work on pausing your side, figuring out what’s underneath on your side and sharing that — that can start to change the spiral that you both get in.

[32:45] When you change your side, it can change what’s happening together as well. So that’s something you could work on, and we have individual therapists that can help you with that as well. Um, another question is: what if we argue about multiple things? Totally fine. That’s common.

[33:05] Everybody fights about multiple things or argues about multiple things. Some couples have like, “We never argue except when it comes to parenting” or “except when it comes to s*x and intimacy” or “except money.” But many couples will fight about all three things and lots of other things, like the in-laws. And it can even be really small things like, “Where did you put the remote?”

[34:02] So it’s the same pattern, same underlying process. And that is what I’m hoping you’re taking away from today — it’s the underlying pattern that you want to work on, not just the content. Because the same thing will happen across multiple content areas of the argument.

[34:44] Um, okay, and then the last common question I thought I might address is: is every couple stuck in some kind of pattern? And I would say yes, every couple has a pattern. Um, this is sort of like a developmental task. Just like when we’re kids we have to learn to crawl, and then walk, and then run — there’s a developmental process that happens for us individually.

[35:10] There’s also a developmental process that happens for us in a relationship. We have to grow our relationship together and meet milestones in creating a really happy, strong foundation to a long-term committed relationship. So one of those is identifying what is your cycle, your spiral with your partner, and learning how to work on that together.

[35:40] And that is a task that everyone is faced with in their relationship. You are not alone. It is literally everybody who has some sort of pattern or flow that they have. It’s just: have we learned together as a couple how to navigate ours?

[36:11] And if not, then that’s something you can start doing, and that’s something you can start doing today. Okay. Well, I’m not seeing any other comments come in. Um, you’re welcome to reach out at communicateandconnect.com and ask us any questions that way.

[36:40] So I’ll go ahead and end this now, and the replay should be available soon. And yeah, I hope you all have a great day.

This content is provided by Communicate and Connect Counseling. The concepts discussed are based on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). For professional support, visit communicateandconnect.com.